Ann Telnaes

from your pals at the library of congress: the cartoons of Ann Telnaes, which were featured in an exhibition at the LOC last year.


courtesy AnnTelnaes.Com

schwarz, ellsberg,nixon...and my hitch-hiker's guide preview

from "The Main Problem With Richard Nixon? He Wasn't Anti-Semitic Enough", Jonathan Schwarz notes that Daniel Ellsberg has a website which features transcripts from the sections of the Nixon tapes that refer to him. Schwarz also refers us to this link, to back in the day when SNL was good and they dealt with Nixon's final days in the White House. Dan Ackroyd, of course, played Nixon.

the ads for the hollywoodized "hitch-hiker's guide" make it look like it's going to be crap. (Alice Cooper would've been a natural for Zaphod Beeblebrox, and not just because he looks a little like original actor Mark Wing-Davey-- I mean, if you're going to Americanize it. Still, why do British cultural imports inevitably suck when they get remade by the US entertainment industry? Is it an immutable law of the universe? And apparently they've made Ford Prefect black. I don't object to this per se, but why do American white male characters always get a sage (yet utterly non-theatening) black guy as their guide? So that ass-kissing film students can smarmily point out to the professor that this is a Mark Twain reference? Doesn't that get a little old? How about a Malaysian taxi driver or an angry lesbian as a guide? ) Even though I have no experience to speak of , they should've had me script and maybe direct. I'll bet it would've turned out at least 72,000 times better, especially because I would've had an easy job-- i.e. don't f**k with the original.

Max on Ted Nugent

Max Sawicky discusses Ted Nugent's speech at the NRA, and casually observes that his music sucks.

"When the world goes flat you get your humiliation delivered to you fiber-optically"

ooooooh.

as minds far more eloquent than mine have said before, "What the Fuck?"

the title above is what Tom Friedman just said to Susan Lisovicz on CNN a few minutes ago.
He also said "these baathists, Jihadists, whatever, they want to fight us over there..."

Baathists, Jihadists, whatever????

Does he honestly think the difference is irrelevant? More likely he thinks the CNN audience is too stupid to know the difference, or that they'll suddenly and dutifully stop thinking there's a difference once he suggests this on teevee, since they should be worshipping him like a god. How many pulitzers has this sorry joker won? Maybe they should give him the pulitzer for being a dork-- they could even deliver it fiber-optically.

"This must be th' physics department,

that would explain all the gravity."



Brock: Don't you have nothing else to do but harp on Dr. Venture? Why haven't you tried the world domination thing, you afraid of the big leagues?
Monarch: Pleease, how stupid do I look to you? World domination - I'll leave that to the religious nuts and the republicans, thank you.

a wednesday miscellaney

Manish at Damn Foreigner is posting again.


according to the Japanese Name Generator, I am Kaito Aburakoji.
Or Toshi Minase.

I recently got an email(deposited in my spam folder) with the title: "Christian Debt Helpers" from an outfit called BrilliantMarketing in Austin. It reminded me of this, from the Rick Ross Institute.
(although I doubt that's what they have in mind.)

Speaking of Austin, see Austin minister Davidson Loehr's "Why Unitarian Universalism is Dying"
via My Irony dot Net.

a sign of our times

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essay contest

Topic Sentence:

"Even though s/he is most definitely a right-wing blogger, ______ is not a nut because..."

leave your mini-essay in the comments. Tell everybody about this contest!

Tom Friedman and other stuff

a new (to me) blog: enduring friedman, which makes a nice companion to the anti-friedman page, by Mark Rupert of Syracuse University.

Donald Johnson,a guest poster at Body and Soul, has a nice riff, "Friedman's World", also about our boy Tom. He writes:

Friedman seems to love competition for its own sake. The mere thought of it makes him prance about happily with his tail up the way one of my cats does when I head towards his food bowl. He is very fond of quoting people in the high tech field or CEO's telling the rest of us we'd better shape up and work harder. Is Friedman telling this for our own good, or does he like to hobnob with the rich and powerful and transmit their orders to society?

My friend Arvin Hill calls Friedman

a wide-eyed groupie who likes to survey the swank hotels beyond our borders...

(see acompanying graphic)

You might wonder: why are there so many people on the net eager to diss Tom Friedman? He celebrates a global economy that's going to screw 90 plus percent of his readers with an unspoken "but if you were a member of the overclass like me it'll be great." He's the Robin Leach of Globalization: "Your kid didn't make into Princeton? Too bad! Here's her one-way ticket to Putzville; but buy my books and watch me on PBS." That, and he's a pompous, disengenous butt-head. Otherwise, no reason.


Kevin Barbieux "the homeless guy", now has a home, or at least an apartment,as well as a new blog, at nashvilleis.blogspot.com
although he has an automatic redirect at the old blog which makes looking at his archives difficult. Kevin was homeless for 4 years, and I wish him well.

another new (to me) site: the Rick A. Ross Institute for the study of destructive cults, controversial groups and cult movements,
which includes this interesting story:
"[Polygamous] Mormons who banked on doomsday find the debt collector at the door"
(I guess it's different when the elect don't pay their bills.)

ok, perhaps I was a little unfair to Robin Leach-HZ.

I admit it

"I'm not a very good president, and I've hoodwinked millions of you."


courtesy Rotten.Com

Millions of eager viewers who were waiting for the pope to die so they could congratulate themselves on their goodness in caring about the old guy were shocked when Fox News diverted coverage from the papal deathwatch to an exclusive presidential news conference. The president continued:

"I tricked millions of people into supporting an unnecessary war just because a bunch of guys told me it would be a good idea and I bought it, and promptly sold it to you. My personal reasons were mainly I wanted to look like a tough guy. I was always in my father's shadow and my parents weren't very supportive and that really messed me up. Don't get me wrong: I don't blame you if you're sore at me, but you've got to understand where I'm coming from. I had to do something about 9/11, or at least be perceived as doing something, and I also wanted to dislodge Saddam for personal reasons, so there was a kinda synergy there. And besides, a bunch of democrats...I dunno, half of them? ...were more than happy to vote for the resolution for force, so what was I supposed to do? I mean, while we're being honest, you know as well as I do that ole John Kerry, after he voted for the resolution, well, if I backed down and announced an agreement with Saddam and the polls said I was being irresolute, well you know mister I-voted-for-it-before-I-voted-against-it would've attacked me for being weak, and Hillary probably would've chimed in too. She's always causing trouble. If you put yourself in a position where Hillary and a democrat from Massachusetts say you look weak, well, I don't have to tell you how THAT would've looked!

And then there's the deficits and the tax cuts. Ok, that probably wasn't such a hot idea either, but who forced you to re-elect me? Diebold? Well, maybe. I don't know. They won't even tell me if they jiggered the election! I mean talk about worrying about a paper trail!

So, sorry about that stuff. Oh, yeah, the enviroment too. Anyway,those guys I was telling you about told me that Dick Cheney's going to have another heart attack and resign because of his health problems. I don't mind telling you this came as a shock to me, but after I told them he was going to give a speech saying he was tired of Israel messing around with our intelligence, those guys told me it was inevitable. Overwork, I guess. If that really happens I'm going to appoint Christopher Shays as vice president and resign after a couple of weeks.

This lady on my left is my therapist, Doctor Fifi LaRue. She's been really great, helping me work things out. I feel a lot better now that I've started seeing her, and I've started to come to terms with a lot of stuff, personal stuff, that I hadn't previously dealt with. Doctor LaRue has also been working with Ken Lay, on my far left. But heck, I think you already know him. He has a bunch of things he wants to get off his chest too, but I don't want to steal his thunder...


Hello, mom? I need a hug. Hello?

on Fridays, do you prefer

pictures like this


or this?

Alan Williams of Blogging out Loud is the source for the 2nd pic:
he says "Spain’s Prime Minister has a feel-up session with the Colombian ambassador."
Those wacky Europeans, always feeling you up. Williams offers nothing else as background, such as whether they were discussing the world bank, trade issues, etc. I can't imagine anyone doing this to say, Barbara Bush. I shudder at the thought, frankly,like Side-Show Bob.